


How The Ghosts Stole Christmas

by anyrei



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Season 11, based on the X-files episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyrei/pseuds/anyrei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Christmas Eve, Dean and Cas investigate a house that Cas claims is haunted. But the spirits within the house have a plan for Dean and Cas on their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How The Ghosts Stole Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drunk_Idjit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drunk_Idjit/gifts).



> Have yourself a merry destiel christmas!
> 
> For drunk_idjit. Not only for being my badass, funny (srsly the gifs!!), porn queen beta but also for having my back on all my stories and ideas. All of this wouldn't be happening without you! Thank you!

** **

 

 

**Christmas Eve**

**Somewhere in Maryland**

 

It was pitch black outside and the full moon set behind the spooky old mansion did a perfect job of painting a ridiculously stereotypical backdrop for Dean Winchester to look out on. Dead vines entwined the iron bars of the rusty entrance gate that creaked quietly in the chill, frigid wind. Could it be any more cliché?

 

Dean rubbed his hand over his eyes as the radio played "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" for the third time tonight. “Cas....? Where the hell are you, man?” He murmured just before flinching in surprise as Cas suddenly appeared next to him.

 

He wondered how in the hell he was still surprised by Cas popping in so suddenly. He knew that his friend had gained the ability to fly again – after all, he had been popping in and out of the bunker for weeks now, collecting anything he could all around the world on the darkness.

 

“Glad you finally showed. I swear if I had to listen to ‘Silent Night’ one more time I was going to eat a bullet.”

 

“Hello Dean, I apologize for being late. I stopped by to check up on Sam. You said he had the flu.”

 

“Yeah, that’s why he didn’t come. You healed him?”

 

Cas looked down at his hands guiltily before lightly shaking his head. “I couldn’t, but I brought him soup.”

 

Dean furrowed his eyebrows: “You okay?”

 

Cas huffed an annoyed “Yes,” and Dean knew he wouldn’t get more out of his friend. He obviously didn’t wanna talk about it. “So what are we doing here?

 

“Looking for a ghost.”

 

“On Christmas Eve?”

 

“It's an important date.”

 

“Yeah, no kidding.”

 

Cas gave Dean a thoughtful look, obviously not getting Dean’s sarcasm: ”Important to why we're here.”  

 

Dean rolled his eyes. He was so done with Cas’s cryptic shit. He just wanted to go home to the bunker, drink some eggnog and just for once have a nice, little Christmas night without hunting things. They had a home now. They even had a little green plastic tree for _fuck’s_ sake.

 

Crestfallen, Cas looked down at his hands again, finally understanding. “I apologize. I should have known that you wanted to stay with Sam tonight. I shouldn’t have–”

 

“Cas,” Dean interrupted, “I drove all the way out here. I might as well know why, right? So, who lives in the house?”

 

“No one.”

 

“I see. The dark, gothic manor the, uh, omnipresent low fog hugging the thicket of overgrowth. Wait-- is that a hound I hear baying out on the moors? This looks more like a tourist attraction than an actual haunted house.”

 

Cas shook his head and finally explained the details: “Two men have once lived here. Maurice and Kyle. Driven by a tragic fear of separation they forged a lovers' pact so that they might spend eternity together and not spend one Christmas apart.”

 

“They killed themselves?” Dean asked with a raised eyebrow, seemingly unimpressed by the gay love story that went haywire.

 

“And their ghosts haunt this house every Christmas Eve.”

 

Dean laughed: “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Cas, why are we here? If we know their names, we could just go and salt and burn their corpses.”

 

“They were cremated,” Cas stated in a neutral tone.

 

“Great, so we have to get in there and find the thing they’re tied to,” Dean stated, annoyed. This could take forever in a mansion like that. He sighed and got out of his car to the trunk, fetching his shotgun and salt, and an iron crowbar – just to be sure.

 

The door creaked as they both carefully entered the house. Dean turned on his flashlight and shone it around the dusty foyer. Thunder rumbled as Cas walked beside him, a bolt of lightning suddenly flashed and illuminated the creepy hall.

 

Dean flashed Cas a bright grin: “Spooky, huh? Like ripped off from a bad horror movie.”

They both looked up at the knocking sound above them, then over at the clock chiming in the foyer. Dean tightened his grip around the crowbar. “Coldspots. I guess you were right about the haunting.”

 

The front door slammed shut suddenly and Dean whirled around to try to open it again. It didn’t budge. “Fuck. Cas?”

 

Cas tried to open the door, pressing his whole body against it before he crinkled his forehead.

“Step back!” He ordered Dean and held his hand against the door. It started to glow and seconds later the door splintered into a thousand pieces – just… the exit wasn’t there anymore. Instead of the way back out, there was a brick wall.

 

“Okay....? That’s new… Are you sure that these two are ghosts? Because that’s some serious mojo,” Dean asked Cas and for the first time he noticed that the angel was worried.

 

“I’ll try to fly us out of here,” he lifted two fingers to Dean’s forehead but instead of the usual disorientation felt from being transported via angel express, Dean felt only the light touch of his friend’s fingers against his skin. The hunter opened his eyes again, noticing how the expression on his friends face, a mix of surprise and shock, turned into fear. “I… I don’t know why I can’t… There’s some kind of barrier I can’t penetrate. I’m sorry, Dean. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you here on so little information.”

 

Dean patted Cas’s shoulder: “It’s okay, buddy. Not your fault. Sometimes that’s just how it goes.” He nodded his head towards the stairway. “Sounds like there's somebody walking around upstairs.”

 

The knocking that came from the floor above them continued to grow louder as if the ghosts, or whatever they were, were trying to mock them.

 

“There. You hear that?”

 

The knocking turned into the rattling and clanking of chains that sounded as if they were being dragged over the old floorboard. Dean exchanged a confused look with his friend: “It’s almost as if they’re trying all the corny old tricks from horror flicks to scare us.”

 

Dean started up the stairs when lightning flashed, highlighting a silhouette of a figure next to the window. “Seriously?” Dean shouted at the figure, but it was gone by the second flash of lightning seconds after.

 

“Dean…?”

 

Dean held up a finger to silence Cas. “Shh! What was that?”

 

The knocking above them stopped. Dean and Cas exchanged a questioning look and Cas nodded, understanding the silent question Dean had asked. Only then did Dean realize how perfectly they both understood each other and how seldom they had to use words to communicate.

 

They went up to the gallery and Dean tried to open the doors there but they were also locked.

 

“So what do you think we’re going up against? They’re too powerful to just be ghosts.”

 

Cas let his gaze wander across the gallery and the hall under them before he answered in a calm, thoughtful voice: ”I don’t know. There is something special about the unconscious yearnings behind their act of death. The longing for immortality, the hope that there is something beyond the mortal coil that they might never be long without their loved ones. These are powerful desires, Dean. They are the very essence of what makes you human. The very essence of Christmas, actually.”

 

“Geez, Cas. Has the Christmas crap finally caught up with you or did you have a poet for breakfast?” They both whirled around at the sound of a loud creak and witnessed a door at the end of the hallway open slightly on its own. It seemed like someone had just turned on the light.

 

“You afraid?” Dean grinned, smugly.

 

“I am afraid of no ghosts,” Cas deadpanned and Dean couldn’t hold back his chuckle.

 

Dean gripped his crowbar and wiggled his eyebrow: “Okay buddy, I got your back.”

 

“Thank you.” Cas rolled his eyes and slowly approached the open door. He carefully pushed the door open and looked inside. “When you and I were sitting out in the car there was not a light on. And look at this.”

 

They both walked into an elegant turn of the century, two story library. There was a ladder leading down to the lower level and all the furniture was covered with white cloth. A huge chandelier bathed the room in a warm light, perfecting the picture of the haunted house cliché. Something just felt off in Dean’s book. “Maybe our friendly ghost thought it would be nice to turn on the lights?”

 

“Did you happen to notice the clock downstairs is keeping perfect time?”

 

“Is it? Mmmhh, so they have electricity... You’re sure no one lives here because…. what the heck is that?!”

 

Dean pointed at the smoking fireplace on the first floor of the library. They climbed down the ladder to examine the fireplace but when they turned around the fire wasn’t there anymore.

 

“This fire has just gone out,” Cas stated, dryly.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“If people really live here… why would they want to live in a cursed house?

  
Dean gaped at him, jaw dropped comically: “It's not enough that it's haunted? Now it has to be cursed?”

 

“Every couple that's ever lived here has met a tragic end. Three double murders in the last 80 years. All on Christmas Eve. That’s why I thought this was your kind of a deal.”

 

They both glanced up at the slam of a door and a loud thumping that came from above them. “Woah… There’s that sound again.”

 

The floorboards underneath them began to creak and Dean pushed the furniture out of the way so that he could drop down and put his ear to the floor. When the doors to the library creaked again Cas turned his attention to them and noticed that the ladder to the upper level of the library was missing.

 

“Dean?”

 

“I think there's a hiding space under the floorboards.”

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

“There may be somebody trapped under there. I gotta get them out.”

 

Dean began pulling up floorboards and sighed heavily as he exposed a dead man. “I was half right.”

 

The hunter kept pulling up boards until he exposed another body. “Hey, Cas... Look at this.”

 

“Another man.”

 

Dean shone his flashlight on the two very decomposed corpses. The man appeared to have a bullet wound in his belly, the other man a wound in his chest.

 

“Looks like they were shot to death… You know what's weird?

 

“What?”

 

“He’s wearing your outfit.”

 

Cas looked down at himself and then at the corpse, who indeed wore a tanned trench coat, black slacks and a white dress shirt. Even the tie was the same.

 

“Weird…,” Dean murmured quietly.

 

“Yes, and the other one is wearing yours.”

 

“Wha – “ Dean checked what he was wearing and Cas was right. The dead dude wore the exact same clothes. “That’s creepy.... um… but…. um … Cas…? That’s not us, right?”

 

“We should really try to find a way out of here, Dean.”

 

Dean couldn’t agree more: “Yeah, let’s go.” They ran out of the room and into … the library again. Cas stopped abruptly and Dean nearly ran into him. “This is the same room.”

 

“Okay…?” Dean turned around and went back through the door. It was still the library with the dead bodies under the floorboards.

 

“All right. I'm beginning to... Get this. I think,” Dean stated, slowly.

 

Cas pointed at the door on the right side. “You go through that door and I…” Dean finished the sentence for him as he pointed at the door on the other side: “I should come out... This door.”

 

“Right.” Cas answered, slowly.

 

Dean crossed the library to the opposite end of the room and just as he expected – came out in the library again. Cas waited for him to enter the door next to him, but he didn’t. “Dean!”

 

The door Dean had gone through slammed shut and Dean turned around and hastily ran back to it. He could open it but when he went through and into the library again, the room was empty. “CAS!!”

 

They were separated.

 

…. :::: :::: ….

 

Dean banged on the door: “Cas, Cas, can you hear me?” When he didn't hear anything he took his shotgun and shot the lock off the door. He opened it quickly only to find that the doorway had been bricked up. A noise behind him caused him to whirl around to seek out the cause. An old man wearing a worn grey bucket hat and a long, dark woolen coat stood in the room behind him. He didn't look like a ghost.

 

“Hey! Who are you?”

 

“That’s a question I believe I should be asking, seeing as this is _my_ house you're standing in. This isn’t one of those home invasions, is it?”

 

“What? No.”

 

“Good. Would you like me to show you the door?”

 

“That's very funny.”

 

“I wasn't making a joke.”

 

“Have you looked at the door?”

 

“Uh-huh, I'm looking at it now.”

 

“Tell me what you see.”

 

“I see a door with the lock shot off it. You going to pay for that?”

 

“That's a door with a brick wall behind it.”

 

The man huffed in disbelief: “Okay, sure.”

 

“You're playing tricks on me.”

 

“I don't know any tricks.”

 

“Yeah? You've been playing tricks on us since we got here.”

 

“Am I to take it we're not alone?”

 

Dean chuckled: “Ah, that's very funny coming from a ghost… or whatever you are. With your mojo you’re probably some pagan god.”

 

The man in the hat laughed heartily: “Yeah, oh... the shotgun fooled me a little at first. You're a ghost hunter, huh? And you think I'm a ghost, huh? I've seen a lot of strange folks coming around here with a lot of strange equipment but I think you must be the first I've seen come armed.”

 

“Strange folks?”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“Like those folks under the floorboard,” Dean turned around and shone his light on the floor, but the corpses were gone and the floor looked untouched. ”How did you do that?”

 

“I didn't do anything.”

 

“There were corpses here– bodies buried under the floorboards.”

 

“Why don't you have a seat, son.”

 

Dean didn’t know why but a short moment later he sat down in the chair with his face buried in his hands. He was tired and he wondered just how the hell this weird shit was his life. He should have just stayed home.

 

“Do you take drugs? Get high?”

 

“No.”

 

“You drink?”

 

“Sometimes. I could actually use a drink right now.”

 

“I see,” the strange man in the hat stated, thoughtfully. He filled a glass with whiskey from a decanter that sat on a shelf and gave it to the hunter. Dean mumbled a “Thanks” as the man sat down across from him and continued to question in a calm voice: “Are you often overcome by the impulse to run around, saving people and hunting monsters?”

 

Dean looked up at him in surprise.

 

“I'm in the field of mental health. I specialize in disorders and manias related to pathological behavior as it pertains to the supernatural,” the old man explained and Dean raised his eyebrow: “ Wow. I didn't know such a thing existed.”

 

“My specialty is in what I call soul prospectors – a cross axial classification I've codified by extensive interaction with visitors like yourself. I've found you all tend to fall into pretty much the same category.”

 

“And what category is that?”

 

“Self-righteous, guilt-ridden and self-tormenting alcoholics with unhealthy codependent family ties and the fear of allowing positive emotions because of a deep rooted feeling of worthlessness and being undeserving of anything good.”

 

“That's a category?” Dean asked sarcastically, realizing that this was a perfect description of himself.

 

“You kindly think of yourself as righteous but you're prone to anger issues, antisocialism... Fertile fields for the descent into total wacko breakdown.”

 

“I don't think that pegs me exactly,” Dean stated, slowly.

 

The man raised an eyebrow: “Oh, really? Waving a gun around my house? Huh? Raving like a lunatic about some imaginary brick wall?”

 

Dean looked over at … the brick wall in the doorway.  

 

“You've probably convinced yourself you've seen all kinds of monsters. You know why you think you see the things you do?” The man asked as he folded his hands in his lap.

 

“Because I _have_ seen them?”

 

“'Cause you're a lonely man. A lonely man chasing paramasturbatory illusions that you believe will give your life meaning and significance and which your pathetic social maladjustment makes impossible for you to find elsewhere. You probably consider yourself passionate, responsible and like the destiny of the world is sitting on your shoulder. Am I right?”

 

"Paramasturbatory"? Dean asked, incredulously.

 

“I’m guessing most people would rather stick their fingers in a wall socket than spend a minute with you.”

 

“All right, now just, uh... Just back off for a second.”

 

“Do you spend every Christmas this way... Alone?”

 

“I'm not alone.”

 

“More self-delusion.”

 

“No, I came here with my friend. He's somewhere in the house.”

 

“Behind a brick wall?”

 

Dean put his glass down, his voice dripping with sarcasm: “It was actually his idea to check this house out. He said that something creepy was going on here and I think he's right. Thanks for the drink and the free couch session. I feel so much better now.”

 

“He must be even more desperate and lonely than you are if he prefers going ghost hunting on Christmas with you. You know why you did it - went with him when he asked you. 'Cause he's your only friend. The only one that hasn't left you yet. And that's what you're afraid of – the loneliness. Am I right?”

 

“I'd just like to find him.”

 

The old man held his hand in the air. “Good… Easy. Piece of cake.” The man got up and walked through the clear doorway before turning to face Dean again. “Brick wall,” he pointed at the doorway before then pointed at his head “...or brick wall? Go ahead, change your life.”

 

Dean got up and started to walk through the doorway but ended up running into an invisible wall. He cursed as he felt a trickle of blood pour from his nose, noticing that the invisible wall had turned back into the brick wall again. He turned round but the old man was gone and the library was suddenly dark and empty as if no one had been there with him at all.

 

…. :::: :::: ….

 

“Dean? Dean!” Cas shouted at the door, trying to open it again as he pushed his whole weight against it. He slowly backed away from the locked door when he felt a presence behind him. An old man in a long white dressing gown stood behind him, staring at him with wide eyes. Suddenly the man let out a high pitched scream like that of a frightened girl and Cas held his hands up to calm the man down.

 

“No, no, please, I won't hurt you. Don't be afraid. I'm an... FBI Agent. I can show you my badge.” This was one of those moments Cas wished that Dean would have been able to see him. How easily he had assured the man in front of him that he was with the FBI rather than just telling him that he was an angel of the Lord.

 

The man stopped screaming and turned on the lights. “You're what? You're a federal agent?”

 

“Yes, Agent Eddie Moscone. And I can... I can show you my I.D.” Cas fished his FBI badge out of his pocket and showed it to the other man, hoping that this time it wasn't upside down.

 

“My goodness, I... I thought you were a ghost.”

 

“I can assure you that I'm not. I got stuck in this room looking for my partner.”

 

“Oh, the bow legged fellow with the freckles and the nice, green eyes?”

 

“You've seen him?”

 

“With you in the foyer. I thought he was a ghost, too.”

 

“Oh... That was you, earlier.”

 

“I sleepwalk sometimes. I thought maybe I'd dreamed it. But then here you were again.”

 

“I apologize. I didn't mean to scare you. ... It's just that we found bodies.”

 

“Bodies... Where?”

 

“Right...,” Cas turned around to point at the corpses under the damaged floorboards only to realize that the floor was suddenly untouched. The hole was gone and there were no bodies.

 

“You look like you saw a ghost. There are ghosts in this house, you know.”

 

Cas turned around, narrowing his eyes in suspicion: “Who are you?

 

“I live here, thank you very much.”

 

“Where's my partner?”

 

“Why are you suddenly so aggressive?”

 

“There were corpses right there underneath the floor!”

 

The man chuckled: “I think maybe the ghosts have been playing tricks on you.”

 

“Ghosts can't do that. Who are you really? And where is Dean?”

 

“Dean is your partner? Just with the FBI or in real life, too? You two must be very close if you’re spending Christmas together, hunting ghosts. Or maybe you both just don't have anybody to spend it with... Or maybe he has... and you just dragged him away and into this. I bet he had something better to do tonight, right?” The man had moved closer to Cas with every word and Cas’s frown grew deeper every second. “Don't come any closer.”

 

The man moved closer despite his warning: “I can see it in your face... The loneliness... The conflicted yearnings... A subconscious desire to find fulfillment through another. Intimacy through co-dependency.”

 

“What?”

 

“Maybe you repressed the truth about why you’re really here, pretending it’s out of duty or loyalty – unable to admit your dirty little secret. You wanted him for yourself ‘cause he’s the only important person in your life. The person you would do anything in the world for, even destroy it, if it meant you could save him. Am I right?”

 

“You don't know me. And you don't live here. This isn't your house.”

 

The man raised his eyebrow: “You wouldn't think so, the way I'm being treated.”

 

“Why is all the furniture covered?”

 

“We're having the house painted.”

 

“Where's your Christmas tree?!”

 

“We're Jewish. Boo.”

 

Cas turned around as a man in an odd hat suddenly entered the room behind him. “Stay where you are,” He warned the other man with a deep growl.

 

The man with the hat smiled at the man in the white gown: “We really attract them, don't we?”

 

“Where's Dean?”

 

“Dean? Is that his name?”

 

“Where is he?” Cas shouted in an annoyed tone.

 

“He'll be along.”

 

Cas spun around at the sound of an annoyed shout, that sounded suspiciously like Dean. He tried the door again but it still didn’t budge. “How do I open the door?” He asked before turning around - to a now empty, dark room. Both the mysterious men were gone.

 

…. :::: :::: ….

 

“You see what we've resorted to? Gimmicks and cheap tricks. We used to be so good at this, Kyle,” the man in the hat complained as he slumped down on a chair.

 

“I know, Maurice,” the man in the bathrobe sighed theatrically. “We used to have years to drive them mad. Now we get one night.”

 

“This pop psychology approach is crap. All it does is annoy them. When's the last time we actually haunted anyone?”

 

“When was the last time we had a good double murder? Not since the house was condemned.”

 

“This is embarrassing– amateur kid stuff.”

 

“Look, if we let our reputations slip they're going to take us off the tourist literature. Last year no one even showed up.”

 

“Oh, of all days, why did you pick Christmas? Why not Halloween?”

 

Kyle grabbed Maurice by the lapels of his coat. “Now, who is filled with hopelessness and futility on Halloween? Christmas comes but once a year.”

 

Maurice smiled at the other man: “You're right. These two do seem pretty miserable. We need to show them just how lonely Christmas can be.”

 

Kyle grinned: “Now that's the old Yuletide spirit.”

 

Maurice bent down over the slightly smaller man and gave him a kiss before they both erupted into giggles, giddy to find their new victims again.

 

…. :::: :::: ....

 

Dean had his flashlight in his mouth as he tried (with the help of a few chairs) to climb up to the upper level of the library. The hunter startled as he noticed a man in a white bathrobe, leaning against the handrail. “Are you Dean?”

 

Dean carefully stood up, reaching for his crowbar: “Who are you, now?”

 

Kyle ignored the question: “What are you doing using my chair for a ladder?”

 

“I'm trying to get out of this room.”

 

“Trying to get out?”

 

“Excuse me,” he shoved the man to the side and tried to get to the door.

 

“Rude. And no. You can't get out that way.”

 

Dean pushed the man in the bathrobe roughly against the wall, ignoring his protest as he opened the door only to be confronted by another brick wall.

 

“I don't appreciate being manhandled, or being ignored. Certainly not at this hour.”

 

“Shut the _fuck_ up. I don't know what game you're playing but I have had it with you. What are you anyway, you're too powerful to be just ghosts. What are you, some pagan Christmas gods?”

 

The bathrobe man raised his eyebrow: “Christmas pagan??? Really?”

 

The ladder suddenly reappeared and Kyle climbed down to the lower level. Dean rolled his eyes and followed him, trying a different tactic. ”What happened to the star-crossed lovers?”

 

“Oh, let me tell you the romance is the first thing to go.”

 

Dean nodded as he realized that these were the people from Cas's story who killed themselves. ”So, it's you. You're Kyle and the other one was Maurice? You're older than I expected.”

 

Kyle had a miffed expression on his face: “I hope your partner finds you a lot more charming than I do.” He let his hands run across the spines of a row of books. “Let's see. Where is it?” Kyle muttered as he pulled a few books out of the bookcase, “No, no, no, no... ah, there it is.” The cover read 'The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas' and Kyle got a dreamy expression on his face as he started to tell his story: “I was young and beautiful once, just like your partner. Whoo! Look at us. Maurice was so handsome.” The fire in the fireplace suddenly blazed up. “He didn't have a gut.”

 

Kyle handed Dean the open book with the pages open to a chapter titled ‘Tale of the Star Crossed Lovers.’ Next to it was a picture of two young men holding hands. “I hope you’re not expecting to gain an advantage in all this.” Kyle asked suddenly, standing way too close for Dean’s comfort.

 

“In what?”

 

Kyle gave him a curious look: “I'm assuming you came here with similar misconceptions.”

 

“We came here looking for ghosts.”

 

“Oh, yeah? You didn't come here to be together for eternity?”

 

Dean chuckled: “No.”

 

Kyle titled his head: “Because you're filled with despair and woeful Christmas melancholy?”

 

Dean shook his head: “Why?”

 

Kyle sighed in defeat: “Maybe it was your partner then.”

 

Dean narrowed his eyes: “What about him?”

 

Kyle grinned, smugly: “You knew this house was haunted.”

 

“Yeah. We’re hunters, but I somehow suspect you already knew that. That’s what we do, go into haunted houses and salt and burn the creepers. The question is, what kind of creepers are you and your partner? You’re obviously no ordinary ghost.”

 

Kyle sat down in his chair and gave Dean a contemplating look, ignoring Dean’s questions completely: “Maybe you two should have discussed your real feelings before you came out here. I'm speaking from experience.”

 

“What experience?”

 

“I'm not going to get into semantics. A murder-suicide is all about trust.”

 

“I thought you had a lovers' pact.”

 

Kyle laughed: “Poetic illusions aside, the outcome, Dean, is pretty much the same.”

 

Kyle stood up and held his bathrobe open, exposing a huge bullet wound that looked like it had been made with a shotgun.

 

“Yikes,” Dean stated dryly.

 

“I don't show my hole to just anyone.”

 

Dean made a disgusted face: “Why are you showing it to me?”

 

“It isn't like you're going to be eating any Christmas ham, is it?”

 

“Oh, you're trying to tell me that Cas is going to shoot me. He doesn't even have a gun on him. Not that he needed one anyway. But that's not the point. He's not going to kill me.”

 

“Suit yourself, but if you shoot first, for him, the rest is an act of faith!”

 

Dean looked at Kyle, incredulously: “Why the hell would I shoot him?”

 

Kyle smiled and clapped his hands: “Or maybe he kills himself.”

 

“I wouldn't let him.”

 

Kyle grinned: ”The bodies under the floor – maybe that was just some kind of Jungian symbolism. Or maybe... there's a secret lovers' pact.”

 

Dean sighed in defeat: “We're not lovers.”

 

“And this isn't a pure science. But you're both so attractive and there'll be a lot of time to work that out.” Kyle held a shotgun out to Dean. “Go ahead, take it.”

 

Dean quickly checked the floor where he had left his shotgun only to see that it was gone.

 

“Take it. Think of it as the last Christmas you'll ever spend alone.” And with that said he suddenly disappeared, letting the gun fall into dean’s hands.

 

Dean huffed as he shook his head: “It's loaded with salt rounds, you fuckers and I AM NOT GOING TO SHOOT CAS!”

 

…. :::: :::: ….

 

Cas continued his attempt to open the locked door when a voice from behind him caused him to stop. The old man with the hat sat in a chair behind him, giving Cas a thoughtful look.

 

“I locked it. For your protection.”

 

“I don't need protection. I just want to leave this place with Dean.”

 

“I'm glad to hear it. You may well have to defend yourself against that crazy partner of yours.”

 

Cas glared at the older man, his voice getting dangerously low: “What have you done with him?!”

 

“Kept him safe from his own mad devices-- at least for now. Do you have any idea why he really followed you into this house?”

 

“Yes, he did it to help me find some ghosts.”

 

“You would think that, but that's not the whole truth.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Cas asked, annoyed. “Where is he?”

 

Suddenly there was a pounding at the door behind Cas. He could hear Dean's muffled voice shouting his name. “Cas!!”

 

Maurice walked to Cas's side and shook his head lightly: “Do you realize how seriously disturbed that man is? How dark and lonely? What he's capable of?”

 

“CAS!!!”

 

“Dean!” Cas shouted back, his fingers slid over the door as if he could find a way to open it.

 

“You should really go. Did you happen to mention a story about a lovers' pact to him?”

 

Cas looked at the man in the hat in confusion: “Yes, I did. Why?”

 

Maurice gave him a sad look: “Oh, you sad, little thing. You don't even know. He didn't tell you, right?”

 

“He didn't tell me what?”

 

“Dean is such a lonely soul, you know... I talked to him earlier.He has so much guilt in his heart. He thinks he doesn't deserve anything good in his life.”

 

Cas looked down to the floor: “I know.”

 

The other man's eyes were full of sympathy for Cas: “It's not his fault, you know. He feels lonely and the only one he still has as a real friend in his life, who chose to be with him instead of being forced out of family obligation... is you. Dean is acting out an unconscious yearning. The deep-seated terror of being alone.”

 

The pounding on door got louder and Cas’s gaze returned to Dean's voices behind it: “Cas? Cas!! Are you there?!”

 

“I'm here, Dean!” Cas shouted.

 

Maurice sighed, defeatedly: “Please, he wants to kill you. He has a gun. He wants to be with you forever. He's crazy.”

 

“OPEN THE DOOR, CAS!”

 

Maurice handed Cas a large bronze key and nodded towards the door: “I've seen it happen too many times in this house. But if you truly want to open that door then go ahead.”

 

“I don't believe you,” Cas stated calmly.

 

“But...”

 

“I'll open the door. Step back.”

 

Cas carefully opened the door only to take a few steps back as he looked at Dean who had a panicked look on his face and a shotgun ready in his hand. “Cas!!”

 

“Dean! Are you okay?”

 

“I am now,” Dean said before he shot Cas in the stomach.

 

…. :::: :::: ….

 

Cas looked down at himself, his eyes wide with disbelief as the blood poured down onto the floorboards through his fingers. “Dean...,” he choked on the words, “what are you doing?”

Dean fired again and Cas sank to the floor. “There's no getting out of here, Cas. There's no way home.” He fired again.

 

“Dean, no... Please, stop this. Put the gun down!”

 

“You going to kill me, if I don't?!”

 

“I'm not going to kill you! I could never do this! You know that, please, Dean.”

 

Dean's face was contorted, Cas barely recognized his friend anymore: “It's me or you... You or me. One of us has to do it.”

 

“Dean,. .. We don't have to do this.”

 

“Oh, yes, we do.”

 

“We can get out of here.”

 

“Even if we could what's waiting for us? More loneliness! And then 365 more shopping days till even more loneliness!”

 

“That's not true, Dean. You have Sam and you have me... You'll never lose me...”

 

“That's why I'm doing this, Cas.”

 

Dean leveled the gun at Cas, still lying on the ground, and fired again. Cas clutched his hand at his stomach, still not believing that this was happening. Somehow he couldn't heal himself and he was suddenly sure that he was going to die there.

 

Dean stood over him, a blank look in his eyes: “Merry Christmas, Cas.” He raised the gun to his own temple. “And a happy New Year.”

 

Maurice walked over and made a show of restraining "Dean", who in reality was just Kyle messing with Cas's head. He kept him from firing his gun again. "Dean" struggled, shouting: “Let me go!! Let me go! I want to die! I want to be with him! LET ME GO!”

 

…. :::: :::: …..

 

Dean ran through the door into the other library, shocked as he found Cas lying bleeding on the floor. He rushed to him, kneeling at his side. He pressed his hand to the bleeding wound but it was too big and there was so much blood. _Fuck!_

 

“CAS!! Fuck.... Cas?!!”

 

Cas slowly opened his eyes: “Dean... Dean...,” he coughed up some blood, “... is that you?”

 

“Cas, what happened?”

 

“I didn't believe it, Dean.”

 

“You didn't believe what?” Dean was at the brink of tears. He couldn't lose Cas like this. Not now. Not ever.

 

“I didn't believe that you'd kill me... I don't... know... what happened... but please believe me. I want you to live...”

 

“What? No, no, no, don't do this to me. Don't you fucking die on me, Cas.” The tears now ran freely down his cheek as he scooped Cas up into his arms, stumbling to the door.

 

An old phonograph started playing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as Dean stumbled down the stairs with Cas in his arms, hoping he could get out of this fucking hell hole so he could find a way to save his friend.

 

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_Let yourself be light_

_From now on, your troubles will be out of sight_

 

“You have to hold on, Cas. Promise me! I'll get you out of here. You hear me? Cas? I'm not letting you go!” He pulled Cas's nearly unconscious form closer to his body, hoping, praying to Cas in his mind.... who was the only one he would ever pray to, whom he had faith in, to give him the strength to save his life. To save the one person, he knew made him feel whole and... not alone...

 

And loved.

 

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas_

_Make the Yuletide gay_

_From now on, our troubles will be miles away_

 

Dean reached the foyer and stumbled at the front door which surprisingly opened immediately as he pushed against it. He fell into a pile of snow that hadn't been there before, hastily checking Cas as... he noticed that all the blood was gone. Cas blinked and looked down at himself.

 

“Cas...?”

 

“I'm okay...,” Cas carefully stated.

 

“What?”

 

“It's a trick. It was all in our heads...”

 

Dean pulled Cas to his feet and they both shared a disbelieving look. “We should go, Cas.”

 

“I think I can arrange that...,” Cas mumbled, still a bit dazed as he reached for Dean's forehead and flew them (and of course Dean's car) back to the bunker.

  


…. :::: :::: ….

 

Inside the mansion the clock began to strike twelve. Maurice and Kyle sat at the library, reading and drinking tea. Kyle looked up with a cheery smile: “You hear that? It's Christmas.”

 

Maurice nodded: “One for the books.”

 

Kyle clicked his tongue: “We almost had those two, didn't we?”

 

His lover chuckled: “Almost had them.”

 

“Two such lonely souls.”

 

“We can't let our failures haunt us,” Maurice grinned.

 

“You wonder what they were really out here looking for?”

 

Maurice shrugged: “Hard to say. People now... This is just another joyless day of the year.”

 

“Not for us.”

 

Maurice smiled happily taking Kyle's hand: “No. We haven't forgotten the meaning of Christmas.”

 

They slowly faded away as the clock struck twelve.

 

…. :::: :::: ….

 

Dean sat on the bed in his room, watching a black and white version of A Christmas Carol and feeling depressed.

 

On TV Scrooge was laughing: “I don't deserve to be so happy. I can't help it. I just can't help it.”

 

Dean would have laughed about the irony but he wasn't in the mood. He needed some whiskey now – after all this mess. A sudden knock on his door broke him out of his thoughts.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Cas opened the door carefully and Dean gave him a warm smile. “Hey.” Before he could think about it, Dean stood up and pulled a surprised Cas into his arms, smiling into his soft, messy hair as he felt Cas wrap his arms around him, too.

 

“Hello Dean,” Cas mumbled into his shoulder. He squeezed him a bit closer and Dean sighed in relief, for the first time on this Christmas morning he felt happy and relaxed. He finally let go of Cas after what felt like an eternity and pulled him into his room and to his bed, inviting him to sit next to him.

 

“Come in. I thought you were hopping around the world again. Looking for stuff about the Darkness and whatnot.”

 

Cas smiled lightly: “No... Dean... I still wonder what those creatures were... And why they let us go in the end...”

 

Dean shrugged: “I don't know, man. I'm just happy we got out alive. Maybe we should burn that house down. Making sure no one ever goes back inside of it on Christmas.”

 

“Yes... Maybe that would work... Dean... there's something I have to tell you... After all of this… as horrible as this experience has been... I realized something.”

 

Dean shrugged: “That I'm a self-righteous, guilt-ridden and self-tormenting alcoholic with unhealthy co-dependent family ties and the fear of allowing positive emotions because of a deep rooted feeling of worthlessness and being undeserving of anything good.”

 

Cas stared at him for a few second before Dean grinned: “You're not the only one that learned something from that, Cas. And before you say anything, I actually want to say something to you too, okay?”

 

Cas nodded and Dean shifted on the bed so that he completely faced his friend. “I realized I had something - someone… in my life, who makes me happy. Someone that I could probably spend the rest of my life with. I kind of pushed the thought away because I was so sure I just didn’t deserve to be happy but… I think, I want to change that… Cas…,” Dean took Cas’s hand, his heart beating faster as he looked up into Cas’s stunning eyes. “I want you to stay here. With me. Would you do that?”

 

Cas’s lips parted and he took in a slow, deep breath before his lips broke into a wide smile. A smile that Dean thought could brighten any room, defeating the darkness of fear and doubt in his heart. It was only one word, but his answer made Dean feel like he was the happiest man on earth: “Yes.”

 

They shared a moment, gazing into each other’s eyes, before Dean bent over and kissed Cas tenderly. Cas’s smile was infectious and Dean was sure his cheeks would hurt from all of his grinning.

 

“What was it that you wanted to say?” Dean asked, still smiling.

 

Cas grinned: “Two things, actually. I wanted to ask you if I could stay here.... But I think we already discussed that.” Dean chuckled lightly before Cas continued: “And I got you something.”

 

“You did?” Dean asked, in surprise.

 

“Yes, that was the reason I was away this morning.”

 

Dean reached over to his drawer: “Well, I got you a little something, too.”

 

They both grinned at each other as they exchanged their gifts. While they opened each other's presents, snow began to fall outside of the bunker, covering their home in a thin white blanket. It was quiet but from somewhere a voice sang.

 

_Faithful friends who are dear to us_

_Gather near to us once more_

_Through the years, we all will be together_

_If the fates allow_

_Hang a shining star upon the highest bough_

_And have yourself a merry... little Christmas now._

 

[THE END]  


End file.
